On its website, Apple has just confirmed that its co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, has passed away at age 56. After bringing the company back from the brink of bankruptcy and turning it into one of the world's most succesful technology companies, Jobs lost the battle with pancreatic cancer.

I hope he accepted Christ and made it to heaven, even if it was to this last very day. Usually geeks are anti-christian or anti-religion. But I really hope this human being has been saved. I was shocked by the news, because I know, every one out there being apart from God has a certain destiny and I wish they didn't die apart from Him.

Based on his comments, I don't think Jobs believed in an afterlife, and I'm certain he'd find the idea of an eternity of rest dreadfully pointless. The fact of mortality was very significant to him as both a personal motivator and an agent of change, and if there's an eternity of peace with no problems to overcome and nothing new to create, I don't think he'd like to be conscious for it.

Even saying "rest in peace" feels almost insulting to his legacy and personality, as if he had been a life-weary sort of man eager to let go rather than the indellibly enthusiastic, visionary man of business who had to be just days away from death before he'd give up his responsibilities of running the world's most valuable company. This is not someone who was longing for rest.

As for Apple, I hope they've learned the right lessons from his success: good is not good enough, an unusable feature is just a mistake, and you can outdo everything else out there by being more focused, polished, and fun to use. The editing process is every bit as important as the creative process. Here's to Steve Jobs, industry's greatest editor.

"Rest in peace" - aka "requiescat in pace" (not to forget about the context of whole sentence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_in_peace ) - thrown around on such occasions might feel almost insulting (likewise: http://www.osnews.com/permalink?492969 ) also for other reasons: it comes from Catholic burial rituals, while Steve Jobs was apparently, if anything, a Buddhist - at least that's what Wiki page about him claims, with some reference thrown in.
Granted, not a big deal, considering how generalised & washed out the expression has become, but...

Apple had its head in the sand for the last many years [...] missed out [...] attitude of arrogance [...] the rest of the world passed us by [...] we need to bring the Mac up into the modern world [...] because we weren't first, because we didn't set the standards [...] this whole notion of being so proprietary in every facet what we do has really hurt us [...] reinvent the wheel our own way; and yeah it might be 10% better but usually it ended up being about 50% worse

It would seem that, in the course of the creative process which Steve Jobs promoted, it was crucial to recognize "good enough".

One thing is sure, Jobs knew about people starving and people slowly dying because of lack of medicines

Don't take this the wrong way - it doesn't matter how much money you throw at a problem, unless the people in government and the countrywide infrastructure is willing to change to accommodate the "help" given, it is like pouring water in to a sieve. The money leaks out of the sides before it reaches the intended recipients. Without creating a base, the tower will topple. It all goes down to the (paraphrased by me) saying "You can give a man a fish and he eats for one day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime".

Pointing at the people in this world that have enough balls to start companies and make a fortune is all well and good, but assuming that they owe the world a free lunch is also pretty flawed. Gates feels like he has to give something back. Jobs spent the last 10+ years slowly dying. Some people have different priorities. By all accounts, Jobs seems to have been a pretty nice guy on a *personal* level (as opposed to "in business") - who knows what might have happened if he's had the luxury of health.